Sauce material: how to use stocks and sauces to build a menu

The huge range of sauces and stocks on offer are your building blocks to quickly cooking up a tailored creation that will add some spice to your menu. Angela Frewin looks at what's new to the market

Stocks and sauces are the linchpins of delicious dishes, adding flavour, aroma and colour to the base ingredients. And demand for tastebud-titillating treats has never been higher, says Debbie King, sales and marketing director at pan-Asian food importer JK Foods: "Long hours in lockdown made people more adventurous with their home cooking and the legacy of that is diners now have a much greater interest in spice and flavour."

Macphie Fondue made with bechamel with butter

Diners' appetite for taste adventures has not elbowed out the old faithfuls either, she adds: "Sauces have always been a gateway to new cuisines and flavours, but as we've seen in so many other post-pandemic food sectors, new flavours for excitement and more familiar flavours for the ‘comfort factor' remain popular components of any menu."

The consistency, convenience and ever-expanding choice offered by commercial stocks and sauces offers a lifeline to operators emerging from a disruptive two years.

"With the staffing challenges that Brexit and the pandemic have thrown at the industry, never has there been more demand for quality base ingredients that reduce the pressure on kitchens where skill sets may be varied," observes Rob Owen, executive business development chef at wholesaler Creed.

Smoke and fire

Britons' love for hot and spicy flavours is evolving, notes Nick Minchin, UK and Ireland marketing manager at Santa Maria: "Smoky, spicy and sweet flavours are bang on trend. These can be found in Mexican, American and East Asian cuisines." Caterers can even pep up its US-style sweet smoked bourbon barb ecue sauce with chilli to create a "trifecta of flavour", he adds.

Atlantic's ‘House of Lords' premium barbecue sauce line ‘blends the best of Americana with hot and spicy or sweet and sticky barbecue flavours and is suitable for dips, glazes, marinades, coatings and toppings," says Rachel Shoosmith, marketing manager at Creative Foods.

Alongside smoky Texan and peppery Louisiana sauces, it includes a sweet, sticky Korean sauce that signals the growing appeal of Eastern versions. New from Lee Kum Kee Europe is a Chinese-style honey barbecue marinade that delivers the secret to the popular char siu barbecued pork dish.

"Sauces are an easy way to add an adventurous flavour to tried and tested dishes, or to try out new recipes from around the globe, and as a result we are seeing many well-loved mainstream sauces being given a ‘twist' with the addition of heat and spice, adds Shoosmith.

Mississippi Muddy Mayonnaise, for instance, is a blend of Tabasco sauce with Creative Foods' Oasis mayonnaise, available in different thicknesses (and a vegan version) for spreading, mixing, dipping and drizzling.

Mexican cuisine, with its rich heritage of chillies, from fruity ancho to hot Habañero and wood-smoked jalapeño chipotle – provides a palette of differing heats that can be dialled down to taste with indulgent sour cream and guacamole, says Minchin.

Chipotle, burnt cacao and chilli are increasingly being added to stocks as authentic Mexican food begins to trend in the UK.

Minchin adds: "Ambient, chilled and frozen options tend to suit stocks or sauces made using ingredients like meat and dairy. Spices and herbs often pack a stronger punch when dried, however, and dry mixes have a longer shelf life." They are also highly adaptable – Santa Maria's Sauce and Rub range (which includes chimichurri, red chilli and ginger flavours) can be used as a dry rub, added to butter or sauces, or mixed with oil and water to create dressings and sauces.

Fabulous fusion

Lighter Asian broths such as pho and miso are gaining favour over heavier roux-style sauces, reports Ian Nottage, head of food development at Sysco Speciality Group. Lee Kum Kee's authentic, multi-usage, concentrated Chinese sauces – from staple soy sauces to more complex flavours such as Chiu Chow chilli oil –cover all classic needs but can also be blended to create new, signature flavours, says managing director Maria Chong.

"Balancing menus by combining cuisines with traditional British dishes that offer familiarity is becoming a huge trend," she adds. Western chefs are spicing up mash, mayonnaise, wings and seafood stir-fries with chilli garlic paste and adding rich, umami flavours to meat roasts, ribs, stews, risottos, pies and gravies with Lee Kum Kee's popular oyster sauce. Its new vegetarian stir-fry sauce offers a shiitake mushroom-based umami-packed alternative for vegans.

Alison Smith, global product developer for Mars Foodservice, predicts soaring demand for a variety of Pan-Asian dishes across one menu. Caterers can, she suggests create a point of difference with fusion foods merging the flavours of multiple Asian cuisines such as katsu curry pad Thai dishes that combine the traditions of Japan and Thailand and sweet and sour pho soups that unify China and Vietnam.

Dessert sauces are also getting the spice treatment, says Sysco's Nottage, with miso being used to add a kick to salted caramel. Santa Maria's cacao and chilli sauce blends ancho chilli, dark roasted chocolate nibs and cinnamon to add zip to sweet and savoury dishes alike.

Steak baguette with Creative Foods' Oasis Mayonnaise

Table-top sauces increase choice across often reduced menus and cater for customers' desire to tweak meals to their personal preferences. Lee Kum Kee's new options for ‘at the table' customisation includes seasoned rice vinegar and three soy sauces (hot chilli, sweet and sesame) while JK Foods' new trio of vegetarian Tiger Tiger Thai dipping sauces (sweet chilli, sriracha hot chilli and sriracha mayonnaise) deliver "different scales of heat intensity that will suit any palate or occasion", says King.

Sweet freedom

Sauce suppliers are helping to simplify the burgeoning free-from market with one-stop solutions designed to satisfy a range of dietary demands. Mars Foodservice addresses the predominant trends by ensuring all of its tomato-based Italian Dolmio and world-inspired Ben's Original ready-to-use ambient sauces are gluten-free, while 14 of the 17 flavours are also vegan-friendly. Macphie has developed vegan, gluten-free versions of cheese and white sauces, demi-glace and cream, and Sysco's Fresh Kitchen brand harnesses plant-based butter and cream in its new ‘no butter' curry sauce.

Free-from alternatives do need to pass the taste and texture test adds Dave Ward, national sales manager at Rich Sauces. The group – whose reputation was founded on mayonnaise – appears to have hit the mark with its vegan, allergen-free version as Ward reports that many customers now use it as their only mayonnaise.

As the main flavour carriers in a dish, stocks and sauces keep menus on-trend and fresh, and there are solutions for all needs and types of outlet, says Owen at Creed: "Different formats of stocks and sauces are tailored to different users, from classic scoop-and-go stock granules for everyday use in casual settings, right through to demi-glace and ready-to-go jus for finer dining occasions."

Multi-tasking mothers

Base or mother sauces – the building blocks of many classic dishes – remain essential kitchen must-haves and can be tailored to multi-task across the menu, offer a personalised spin or be customised to the customer.

Macphie's ambient béchamel with butter sauce can cater across several day parts, in toastie fillings, pizza toppings, pasta dishes, cheese fondue, lobster thermidor and dauphinoise potatoes, says marketing manager Kirsty Matthews.

Adding cheese or mustard turns béchamel into a mornay or mustard sauce, adds Nottage, while fresh chillies or olives transform base tomato sauces into arrabiatia or puttanesca.

Owen suggests uplifting a red wine reduction with brandy or Madeira, while adding fresh herbs and butter to a pre-made hollandaise creates a super-silky sauce with a handmade feel.

Hooked on garum

Garums – intensely savoury, fermented fish condiments – are making waves in specialist restaurants, observes Stephen Davidson, managing director of Tiger Foodservice.

"Also known as ‘Roman ketchup', garums were once a mainstay of European cuisine and are essentially a blend of fish, salt and water that is allowed to ferment in the sun and which naturally creates a savoury, deep umami sauce, not unlike Asian-style fish sauce," he says.

"The big, bold flavours of garums reflect the popularity of ancient cooking techniques such as fire cooking and smoking, but interestingly they're also now being made out of meat and vegetables as well as the traditional fish base," he adds. "They're also a great way to use up food scraps which might otherwise have gone to waste."

EHL Ingredients offers spice blends to create soups such as ramens, chowders, Brazilian moqueca fish soup, Korean maeuntang fish soup and cioppino, a San Franciscan fish and shellfish soup.

Stock in stock

At Truefoods in North Yorkshire, chicken, beef, veal, lamb, duck and venison stocks and jus are made in the time-honoured traditional manner, where the bones are roasted before being simmered and the stock is double-strained through double muslin. The result, explains co-owner Jack Mitchell, is an allergen-, additive- and preservative-free stock with deep flavour and clarity that can be used as is or customised.

While the 48-hour cook time, potential health and safety issues, staff shortages and soaring energy prices has banished the ever-bubbling stockpot from many commercial kitchens, operators can create a real point of difference (and reduce food waste) by making their own stocks, argues Tasneem Alonzo, joint managing director for EHL Ingredients' Lähde brand.

Top tips for top stocks

Assign time for batch cooking when you have offcuts, trimmings and a good selection of herbs and spices.
Label stocks that are gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, vegan and organic.
Freeze stock in convenient portions.

(Source: EHL Ingredients)